There were further challenges with bringing fire and water to “life”
Jeremy Talbot, who oversees modeling and rigging, was a part of the effort to take the designs and bring them to life. “At Pixar, we do a lot of different things, but most often we try to represent flesh and bone through caricature.” he said, elaborating on the collaboration process between the film’s various teams. “As Sanjay said, [we wondered], how can we make fire and water express [emotion]? That was our biggest challenge. They’re not flesh and bone. Ember is fire. She’s not something on fire. Ember is not a piece of coal that’s on fire. She actually is fire. And if you passed her hand through her, it would behave like fire. A key characteristic of water and fire is the fact that they leave trails in many cases, [and we found it was] very important to direct and stylize [this] to enhance their performances. Ember’s fire [dims and reappears] as she leans forward; there’s a little pops in the heat of her face [that] leave behind little trails of fire, heat [and] emotion, [and the look of] how the fire fades through color.”
